QuoteReplyTopic: Greeks destroyed the people who they learned from Posted: 16-Sep-2005 at 20:19

The story of European civilization really begins on the island of Crete with a civilization that probably thought of itself as Asian (in fact, Crete is closer to Asia than it is to Europe). Around 1700 BC, a highly sophisticated culture grew up around palace centers on Crete: the Minoans. What they thought, what stories they told, how they narrated their history, are all lost to us. All we have left are their palaces, their incredibly developed visual culture, and their records. Mountains of records. For the Minoans produced a singular civilization in antiquity: one oriented around trade and bureaucracy with little or no evidence of a military state. They built perhaps the single most efficient bureaucracy in antiquity. This unique culture, of course, lasted only a few centuries, and European civilization shifts to Europe itself with the foundation of the military city-states on the mainland of Greece. These were a war-like people oriented around a war-chief; while they seemed to have borrowed elements of Minoan civilization, their's was a culture of battle and conquest. We call them the Myceneans after the best-preserved of their cities, and their greatest accomplishment, it would seem, was the destruction of a large commercial center across the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor: Troy. Shortly after this defining event, their civilizations fell into a dark ages, in which Greeks stopped writing and, it seems, abandoned their cities. It was an inauspicious start for the Europeans: while the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians had enjoyed almost two thousand years of continuous civilization, in Europe the experiement began with the brilliance of the Minoan commercial states translated into the brief, war-like city-states of the Myceneans, only to slip back into the tribal groups that had characterized European civilization for almost all of its history. In spite of this, the basic character of European civilization is laid down in this early experiment; even though they slip into obscurity, the Greeks will permanently remember the Myceneans as the defining moment in their history.

Lost to human memory for over three and a half millenia, the Minoans stand at the very beginning of European civilization. While Europeans had known about the pre-Homeric world through the poems of Homer, only the Greeks and Romans seem to have taken these poems seriously as history. That pre-Homeric world, however, was lost in the haze of generations of oral story-telling before it finally got fixed in the poems of Homer. However, in 1870, an amateur archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, determined to find the real Troy of the Trojan War, the war that is the center of the Homeric poems. After successfully locating and digging up Troy, he turned his sights to the Greek mainland and discovered two ancient cities, Myceanae and Tiryns, which together revealed a civilization that up until that point had only been known in the poems of Homer and Greek drama. His discoveries inspired a man named Arthur Evans to begin digging in Crete in order to discover what he thought would be an identical, Mycenean culture thriving on that island; instead, what he found was a people far more ancient than the Myceneans, and far more unique than any peoples in the ancient world: the Minoans.

They were a people of magnificent social organization, culture, art, and commerce. There is no evidence that they were a military people; they thrived instead, it seems, on their remarkable mercantile abilities. This lack of a military culture, however, may have spelled their final downfall. For the Minoans also exported their culture as well as goods, and a derivative culture grew up on the mainland of Greece, the Myceneans, who were a war-like people. Strangely enough, the direct inheritors of their traditions may have been the agents of their destruction.

But we know now that Greek civilization began at least a millenium before the Age of Athens and almost eight hundred years before Homer. It began off the mainland of Greece, in the Aegean Sea, in the palaces of the bureaucrat-kings of Minoa.

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I agree with that more or less but I'm sure that some Greeks will start
claiming that Minoans were as Greeks as Socrates. Something that
doesn't seem to be the case.

Ancient Crete is one my favorite cultures of all history, specially
because their apparent amtriphocality and their most beautiful art that
takes the best of Egyptian but inyects its creations with movement
(life), something that is only found earlier in European paleolithic
mural art.

Also, I can't but find simmilitudes between Minoans and Etruscans. Though Cretans seem happier and Etruscans more cynic.

True about the European Palaleolithic art. Although when u make that similarity you must understand one thing. The reason European Paleolythic art has survived in Europe is because Europe used to be a much colder place then it is today. Infact calling it a "Frozen waist land" would not be an over exageration in anyway. Due to this fact early man in Europe lived in caves almost all the time. Early man in Europe covered there bodies with animal furs from the animals seen in there wall Paintings. They also had to fight off cave bears for control of these cave habitations of theres. So to say that these old paintings is some what true but you must see from what i have said that it is almost 100% likly that early man throughout the rest of the world also did much similar paintings just not in caves. Due to the fact that the rest of mans murals were not in caves ment that over time these outdoor murals were slowly erassed by weather (wind, rain, and in some places snow).

I agree with that more or less but I'm sure that some Greeks will start
claiming that Minoans were as Greeks as Socrates. Something that
doesn't seem to be the case.

Well, there are several hundred years between the Minoans and Socrates. Although they seem to be linked to each other. I am referring to the simalarities between their speeches. Linaer A, the undeciphered script of Crete is related to Linear B that was used for writing Mycenaean, which itself was an early form of the greek language.

I agree with that more or less but I'm sure that some Greeks will start
claiming that Minoans were as Greeks as Socrates. Something that
doesn't seem to be the case.

Well, there are several hundred years between the Minoans and
Socrates. Although they seem to be linked to each other. I am referring
to the simalarities between their speeches. Linaer A, the undeciphered
script of Crete is related to Linear B that was used for writing
Mycenaean, which itself was an early form of the greek language.

I knew it!

While Linear A scritp is obviously at the origin of Linear B script,
Linear A is not Greek and Linear B is, what makes a huge difference.
Let's see a couple of examples:

Greek alphabet is derived from Phoenician alphabet but Greek is not derived from Phoenician.

Turk has been written in several alphabets (Arabic, Persian and finally Latin), still it is the same language.

Linear A and B are like Phoenician and Greek alphabets but not like the diferent scripts used to write Turk.

True about the European Palaleolithic art. Although when u
make that similarity you must understand one thing. The reason
European Paleolythic art has survived in Europe is because Europe used
to be a much colder place then it is today. Infact calling it a
"Frozen waist land" would not be an over exageration in anyway.
Due to this fact early man in Europe lived in caves almost all the
time. Early man in Europe covered there bodies with animal furs
from the animals seen in there wall Paintings. They also had to
fight off cave bears for control of these cave habitations of
theres. So to say that these old paintings is some what true but
you must see from what i have said that it is almost 100% likly that
early man throughout the rest of the world also did much similar
paintings just not in caves. Due to the fact that the rest of
mans murals were not in caves ment that over time these outdoor murals
were slowly erassed by weather (wind, rain, and in some places snow).

I'm not talking about antiquity of the art but about the expresionism
in it. Recently someone posted images of paleolithic art of the Zagros
(basically painting of goats) and they definitively weren't animated
with the life that is in SW European cave art or in Cretan frescos.

There are other ancient paintings over there but, possibly with the
exception of the art of Bushmen (that resembles a lot that of Neolithic
Mediterraneo-Saharan mural art), only those two that I've mentioned
have that life, that movement in them. Egypt and other Near Eastern
arts for instance are too hieratic (static), the same can be said about
pre-Columbian American art, I think.

And one more thing: European civilization surely doesn't begin in
Crete, where it can be traced only as soon as 1800 BCE, as such
civilization. There are a number of precursors in the Balcans, Iberia
and also in the Aegean. The most important are:

C. 3500 BCE, in what is now Bulgaria and nearby areas, a
civilization with monarchy existed for several centuries (culture of
Karanovo-Guelnita), the labrys can
be traced to the related culture of of Gradesnica-Krivodol in NW
Bulgaria. This culture belonged to the Balcano-Danubian Neolithic and
Chalcolithic complex and was influenced by contemporary Troy I. It
disapeared c. 3000 due to IE invasions.

C. 2600 BCE two civilizations (with fortified cities) arose in
the Iberian peninsula: one in the SE (Los Millares) probably with some
Eastern Mediterranean influence and the other in the West (Vila Nova de
Sao Pedro). Both lasted until c. 1300 (though Los Millares was repalced
by nearby El Argar c. 1800) .

In the Aegean Sea, apart of Troy, that is technically Asian, a
most important precursor of Cretan civilization is the Cycladean
civilization with at least two fortified cities in Syros and Melos. It
started c. 2800 and decayed soon before the advenement of Palatine
Minoan.

The story of European civilization really begins on the island of Crete
with a civilization that probably thought of itself as Asian (in fact,
Crete is closer to Asia than it is to Europe).

WOW wait a minute, has anyone looked at a map lately???
Sadly even though tey obviously put alot of work into the articles presented they didn't.

I for one always considered Hellas as part of Europe and Crete is just
a short ferry-boat ride from Peloponnesos... if Crete is closer to
Asia, I wonder what Rhodes and Cyprus are

Originally posted by Maju

While Linear A scritp is obviously at the origin of Linear B script,
Linear A is not Greek and Linear B is, what makes a huge difference.
Let's see a couple of examples:

Greek alphabet is derived from Phoenician alphabet but Greek is not derived from Phoenician.

Turk has been written in several alphabets (Arabic, Persian and finally Latin), still it is the same language.

Linear A and B are like Phoenician and Greek alphabets but not like the diferent scripts used to write Turk.

I recall having this discussion with you in a different topic. While I
will agree that similarity in script does not constitute same use of
language, claiming that Linear A' isn't Hellinic is equally as wrong as
supporting it is simply because we have NO single attempt to decipher
the script acknowledged by the scientific community. While there
have been many individual theories claiming from Slavic,
Etruscan, Egyptian, proto-Semitic to Turkish, the most supported theory
is that of a Hellinic language/script. Among others the most well known
supporters of this theory are : Basilios Katsiadramis, Edgar
Bowden, Massimo Imperiali,
Jean Faucounau, Reinier J. van Meerten, Ollivier M. Louise.

But still even though they support the 'prevailing' theory, we still
can't definitely say that they are either right or not. Simply because
the scientific community hasn't accepted nor has rejected their theory
yet...

To the gods we mortals are all ignorant.Those old traditions from our ancestors, the ones we've had as long as time itself, no argument will ever overthrow, in spite of subtleties sharp minds invent.

Regarding the title of the topic, many civilizations tend to destroy cultures which they learn from. It is a common part of the evolution of civilization, when a once-advanced civilization fails to progress or strengthen itself to the extent it can hold off invaders it tends to fall. The civilization which succeeds it can inherit a place of primacy, but only so long as it can hold its own. What the Mycenaean culture did is not different from any other.

There is no claiming of Minoan Culture by the Greeks! There
are obvious differences in the cultures of the time. But cultures are
derivative of their influences and if true assimilation takes place
there are definate connections. These details are still unclear. Until
they are this is the story.The
Greeks invaded Crete after the Minoan culture suffered consecutative
destructions due to tsunamis that were 200ft high. They are the result
of the greatest
Volcanic explosion of the ancient world (Thera) modern Santorini .
Thera shared a very
simmilar cultural connection to Minoan Crete and must have been a
colony of theirs. The destruction of both Minoan type Centers at the
same
time was devastating . Plus
the atmospheric conditions that blighted the crops with ash and dark
skies would last for decades. Several of the aftershocks were too much
altogether for the
Minoans to recover from.
The Late Minoan Culture was also suffering from a series of
earthquakes which are
evident in the architectural destruction of its late palace
culture. Also no
evidence supports any burning of cultural or religious centers by
Mycenaeans by force. There is a misunderstood
archealogical find which mentions a man killed at a religious
alter. It was long theorized that this resulted from a Mycenaean
attack on the
site where there was also evidence of a fire. "The skull
fragments later prove he was killed on the spot by the falling debris
probably caused by and earthquake and the fire must have been the
result of the same damage." The Mycenaeans walked into a proverbial
ghost
town when they took over Crete. The built upon the foundations of of a
declining culture and if anything at all they attempted to resuscitate
it or in the very least preserve the traces of that culture. The
Mycenaeans and later Hellenic culture as a whole owes art ,
architecture
, organizational and seafaring trade to the Minoan culture. They
were obviously impressed by Minoan art and design so much so they
copied a lot of their style. The Mycenaeans would sooner thrust a spear
into a fellow Mycenaean than into a valuable Minoan artisan or court
records keeper. The claim is not that Greeks claim Minoans as theirs
because the Minoans palace culture exists on Modern day Greek soil. The
Greek civilization is a direct decendent of it. The Minoan culture was
an inspiration of a people and civilization that preceded and
surpassed the Mycenaeans in almost every way. Without them there would
be no Greek or Hellenic culture. A culture that would later eventually
surpassed all others in
Art, Science ,Literature Philosophy, Architecture and
Mathematics. " Instead what I find interesting is that during the time
that the "HYKSOS" ruled Egypt a temple fresco existed in Tell el Dab'a.
The Frescos seemed to have painted over or covered up by after
Egyptians after
the Pharo RamsesII rdefeated the Hyksos and sent them to
the Cannan.
Is there a link between the Hyksos and the Phillistines, and a link to
the Philistines to Mycenaean Culture and if so how are the Minoans
connected in all of this. Did the Minoans just come along to paint
religious graffiti on behalf of some bronze age Wannax. It's any
bodies
guess. But the dotted outline on the crime scene has a crested
helmet and bronze armor of the kind that we see
in a Mycenaean Invasion. This is based on common archeological
elements. The theory that the Hyksos were Sherdan, or
Invading Bronze age Lydians and Corsicans and Sicilians sounds
like a fantasy. This idea is more like the unorganized
piratical raids the Norse carried out in the middle
ages. This is not an organized and defined invasion like the one that
brought Egypt to its knees and caused the Hittites to vanish from the
historical record. To read more on this check out Trude and David
Dothan's evidence on their Phillistine findings in Ashkellon,
Ekron.

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